The Moon Steals My Slumber
by Felis
Summary: RLSB. A series of vignettes. Remus' thoughts are illumined by the light of the moon.


Disclaimer: These are JK Rowling's characters.

A/N: I saw an exhibition of student artists' work last spring in Hartford CT. The notes on one of the paintings said it was inspired by a song titled "The Moon Steals My Slumber" by a band called something like Silveraire. (Apologies for my potentially faulty memory!)

Anyway, the title grabbed me and this was the result.

Words between slashes set the scenes.

The Moon Steals My Slumber

_1. A tawny-haired young man reflects in the moonlight. It's become his habit over the years, on those nights that he can't sleep. He looks over the landscape, and marvels at the beauty of the trees edged in damascened silver. The faint beads of dew on the lawn glow with the luster of pearls. The ethereal shimmer of the landscape almost makes him forget what the moon will do to him the following night. Almost._

I love the window seat in our dormitory, even if it is nothing more than an architectural whimsy. After all, what purpose does it have, other than to give one a perch with which to straddle the boundary between the mundane, feet-on-the-floor bedroom on one side and the wild openness of space, air, and uncertain possibility on the other?

I love the window seat.

Even on nights like this. The night before the full moon stretches long, so long, hours long, and sleepless.

The piercing moon intrudes like a knife between my ribs. Like a clarion trumpet summoning me to judgment. The pull of that pearly road calls to me. I'm a pilgrim, even within the confines of my dorm room. I'm drawn to the moon and her merciless light.

What will it be like next autumn? Where will I be? How will I sleep, alone in some room without the sighs and mumbles, without the whisper of sheets rustling unseen from the beds of my roommates? Sitting here, listening to the discordant rhythms of other people sleeping, it's a wonder any of us ever sleep at all. Peter turns with a low grunt, and snores into his pillow. James' deep, slow breathing interrupts with brief, soft, incoherent mumbling. How will I sleep next year, once we've all left Hogwarts? How will I stand the silence?

They sleep deeply, not hearing their own noises, rarely bothered by nightmares. They sleep undisturbed. Only I sit awake. Only he sleeps uneasily.

I watch him in the light of the almost full moon. As always, his bed curtains are thrown back so he can see the sky should he awake in the night. He told me once that it comforted him to see the stars against the infinite dark. Their light is eternal proof of a world outside the black confines of his cold, cheerless home. He calls on their silent power to help him fight against the suffocation of thick walls and malevolent charms and poisonous attitudes. The mere sight of the stars sustains him in his prison.

On these nights I sit in the window seat a few feet away from him. My eyes increasingly turn from the moon to dwell instead on the handsome face of a troubled young man whose sleep gives him little respite. In the monochromatic light of the moon a frown creases his brow. My hands long to brush it away. Unnatural lines should not mar such beauty.

I know my own demon, the intruder that poisoned my blood as truly as any rape defiling a virgin. I live with it, although I'm not sure I'll ever come to terms with it. But, at least I know my enemy. He struggles with unseen devils. He fights valiantly though blinkered by his blood, hindered by the chains of his heritage. Even now, his renunciation has not completely freed him. The shelter he has with the Potters does not always shield him.

I detested him for a while. I hated him for his betrayal, even though he hadn't meant it. He had lashed out for his own protection and hadn't taken the time to think of what it might do to me.

I hid my hurt, though I know he sensed it. I saw shadows in his crystalline eyes, shadows around the edges like fog-smudged outlines. He sensed my wounds and was deeply sorry.

He's rapier-sharp and charmingly sly. He'll defend you to the death if he cares about you, but he'll gut you with cold ruthlessness if you put his back to the wall. I realize now that he's capable of doing this to his enemies in a heartbeat and to his friends with only a slightly longer pause. I don't think James has ever seen it. James, who in some ways is quite in love with him.

I know now of what he is capable, good and bad. The bad bruised my heart, although part of that was my own fault, since I'd never told him that my feelings for him went far beyond friendship. I didn't understand. I didn't know what drove him to do it. And he couldn't explain, although he tried desperately hard to articulate his thoughts. He, who manipulates words so facilely, who lies his way out of tight situations with the somber grace of a priest, struggled and strained to find the phrase, the tone, the clarity to explain the weight and burden and crushing strangulation of his life.

It finally made sense this past summer, when I joined James and his parents in the barrister's office. We sat and waited in the antechamber while he went inside with his hellish family for the reading of his great-uncle's will. As we waited, we heard voice after voice reverberating through the closed doors, spilling scorn, contempt and ridicule in tones of acid. "The man is dead,' I thought, 'Why waste your breath when he's beyond your reach?'

It hit me like a punch in the stomach. They didn't hate Alphard enough to besmirch him in death. No, they aimed at a live target. They spewed their abuse at their wastrel son, nephew, cousin; at the degenerate in their midst. And whatever wounds I had carried in my heart because of him vanished.

I am a monster; my affliction not easily hidden. Yet my parents cherished me and fought for me. He stands convicted by his family of being a traitor to his blood for the simple reason that he dares to think differently. To them he is every bit the monster I am. Over and over through the years they draped their abuse around him like soiled robes. They fed him the rancid meat of prejudice and howled with indignation when he spat it out. They ridiculed his achievements and raised the whip to bring him to heel like an importunate mongrel. They saw an intelligent and gifted young man and tossed him aside like garbage.

He is every bit as damaged as I am.

Now I watch him sleep and wish for nothing more than to slide between the sheets next to him. I watch him when he's awake and take pleasure in the quicksilver smile, especially when it is directed at me.

And I notice that he watches me. It's new, this scrutiny, this gaze that twitches across my face and darts away when I catch him staring. He is not as skilled as I at observing someone surreptitiously. But, then, I've been watching him for years so I am much more practiced. Sometimes our eyes meet and lock like magnet and metal, only to draw apart unwillingly when others intrude.

We've taken the first steps in the dance. The music is still faint, barely heard over the din of our every day lives. But, it's there. I know it; and now, I think, he knows it, too.

_2 .A tawny-haired young man listens to the lingering pleasurable aches of his body. His regards the moon through languid hazel eyes, mildly annoyed at her presence, but too bonelessly spent to bother to rise and close the curtains. Tonight, it's easy to brush her intrusions aside._

All the laws of nature say I shouldn't be awake. I'm starved for sleep. I yearn to sink into the sweet, black, warm oblivion that wraps around me like eiderdown. I haven't slept much at all over the past few nights.

The moon intrudes, but her waning strength falters. I feel her icy fingers clutching at me, unwilling to let go. But, she's losing her hold, an irate mistress clawing helplessly in the air as her dog slips away from the leash. She'll return to fasten her collar around my neck soon enough.

This month her strength sputtered like a flickering candle. Her feeble grip trembled in the last days of December. Another power was ascendant before the full moon and now it chases her away, laughing at her weakness. Barking laughter surges full and vibrant from the wellspring of his heart. It flows up through the warm alabaster column of his throat, as beautiful as a pillar in a church. The laughter flows directly from his body to mine, through every inch of warm skin pressed against me.

Sheets of stars swirl through the midnight hours, challenging the moon's supremacy. Nights are not for sleep, but for worship. We offer our prayers on the altar of our bed. We sacrifice our own desires to serve up pleasure for the other. And thus are we fed and fulfilled, only to find our hunger rising anew for the taste and feel of each other's flesh.

We've hardly slept during these holidays. Or, rather, we've slept only in snatches; at whatever hour of the day our need for rest overcomes our lust. We've barely left our rooms. The professors look suspiciously at us on the infrequent times we show up for meals. They suspect some monstrous prank. It's so hard to act natural in front of them. He tells me that we should be better at this, since we've always had secrets. He's right, but still, more than once in my efforts to keep a straight face I've bitten my lip or the inside of my cheek so hard that I've drawn blood.

And once we're again hidden away in our dorm, our room, our bed, he insists on tending to my self-inflicted injuries with gentle kisses from his lips or soothing swipes of his tongue. I can't keep my hands off him when he's that close. I grab him and tear at his clothes. My fingers grip his flesh hard enough to bruise. My arms grapple against muscle and bone. My legs twist around him, clutching his hips or his waist. He's everywhere, filling all my senses with his presence, his body on fire with his thirst for me.

We devour each other, bury ourselves in each other, bite and lick and kiss and fuck each other senseless for hours. Until we collapse exhausted into sleep or, stomachs growling in a loud and unholy chorus, we make another disheveled appearance for a meal.

When the others return next week surely the lingering musky scent of sex will waft from every fold and drapery in the room. Surely they will see the changes in us. Our eyes, our mouths, and in the way our bodies move with the slow strut of fearsome predators sated from the kill. Surely they will notice. Surely things will change.

They changed with Lily. She was a new, exotic spice; a flavor we weren't sure we liked. Now we're the ones tampering with the mix. I hope they don't find it distasteful.

In the deep silence of the early morning hours, sleep tiptoes closer. I close my eyes and shut out the fading glare of the moon. I dismiss my vague worries. I'm conscious only of the pleasurable throb inside me and the soothing weight of his body draped along mine. He sleeps untroubled by dreams, his breath warm against my skin. For now, it's enough.

_3 .In the dark confines of a shabby flat, a tawny-haired man paces in the moonlight. He pauses by the window and pleads silently for the silver beams to hurry on their monthly visit. He begs them to release him from his hell and take him to a place where he can bear his pain.._

I can't wait for the full moon. It can't come too soon. I wish it would last forever.

How did this happen?

I knew. I knew something was wrong. I've known for months. But, I never expected you to rip my heart to shreds and turn my life to rubble.

How could you betray us like this? Your lover? The man you called your brother? Your godson? How could you slaughter those people? You cut them down mercilessly. They died hearing the song of your manic laughter.

I know how. Your back was against the wall. And the only way out was bloody treason.

You monster.

But you played it so cunningly. So gradually that I hardly realized we were strangers to each other. Everything became shadowed; every statement nuanced; every movement hesitant. Your words turned deliberately vague; not outright lies, but no more than half-truths. Trust wore away between us, affording us the only the cheap warmth of a threadbare blanket. You hid your eyes from me. You cast your glance down so I couldn't see through the thicket of your lashes. You tilted your head, so I couldn't look through the curtain of your hair. You turned away.

You hid the true depths of your despicable, filthy heart from me. But I felt it in the coldness of your touch. In the parched, pinched twist of your lips on those rare occasions when you forced yourself to kiss me. And like a fool, I mourned that you no longer loved me. If only it was that simple.

You don't deserve to die. That would be too easy. You deserve to suffer. You deserve pain. Torment. Agony. For the rest of your life, you deserve to writhe in the tender embrace of the Dementors. I'd like to watch them claim you. Play with you. I want to see them strip you naked and fondle your body with their clawed, clammy hands. I want to see them curl their rotting limbs around you. I want to hear you scream your throat bloody as they wrench every joyous memory from you. I want you on your knees, begging them for their kiss. I want to see them sigh their fetid breath into your face, making you gag, making you puke your guts out, making you choke on the stinking mass of your rotten heart.

I want to watch them fuck you. I'd cheer them on while they raped you. I'd urge them to shove their festering flesh into every orifice of your body. I long to hear them grunt with delight at your struggles and your pleas for mercy. I want them to break you until there's nothing left but a gibbering, slobbering shell of a man. But, I want you to retain some small spark of awareness. Some human understanding that you deserve this punishment for rest of your life. May it be a long one.

I can't wait for the full moon. For at least one night, I'll lose myself. I'll revert to a beast. But at least I won't see your face in my mind. I won't hear your voice or long for your touch. I won't feel my heart continue to crumble. It should have turned to dust long ago.

_4 .A man perches on a window seat, his tawny hair flecked with gray. He nods a greeting to the waning moon and directs his thoughts to her. A part of him idly wonders if this monthly internal monologue directed at the silvery orb is a sign of madness. But who else can understand?_

No one. Just the moon. The rest are long gone. Dead. Or insane.

The after-affects of the Wolfsbane Potion leave me feeling a little woozy. Maybe I'll be strong enough to teach tomorrow. Even if I'm not, I'll make the effort. It's getting harder each month to hide my thoughts, my weakness, from Snape's fathomless eyes.

I should sleep, but I can't seem to resist the urge to prop myself here and gaze across the grounds in the moonlight. My happiest memories are from the time I spent here, before everything went black.

Like a restless wraith, I know you're lurking out there. I can't believe that somehow you found a way to escape. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me; you always found a way to get what you wanted. But twelve years is a long time to wait and patience was never one of your defining characteristics.

Are you out there? The real you? How much of you is left?

I felt my heart stop when I saw that picture of you in The Daily Prophet. Not because of the pale, gaunt face. Or the matted dank mass of hair. It was your eyes. They overflowed with suffering, not madness. You've paid a price for your sins. Is it enough? When now you're hunting Harry?

Who are you? Why are you doing this? To what end? Voldemort is vanquished. Are you so starved for vengeance that you seek to murder a boy? Are you indeed that mad?

I find, to no small surprise, that I don't even hate you any more. When I think of you, it's as if you were two different people. I still ache for the spirited young man that blazed through my life, capturing my heart with his brilliant fire. He was so foreign to the dark demon that crippled me with his treachery.

I say nothing to the Headmaster of your Animagus form. The longer I hesitate, the harder it is to broach the subject. The greater the sin, should you succeed in your mad quest. Harry's blood would be on my hands, too. Yet, still, I can't bring myself to reveal your secret.

Did the stars sustain you in Azkaban? Did they once more symbolize hope and freedom? Were you sane enough to notice?

What's that? A cat? Yes, it's definitely a feline form slipping along the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Be wary, little one. There are dark creatures ready to ambush you from the undergrowth. Even now I see branches rustle. But you're not afraid. Your head lifts and you stride confidently towards a large, dark shape. My breath catches in my throat. The shape vanishes into the darker shadows of the trees. But, for a moment, it looked like a huge black dog.

_5 .A man pauses in the doorway, his anxious face lit by the waxing moon. He brushes a few strands of hair off his face, not because he needs to, but because the motion gives him something to do until he senses his presence is not unwanted. Slowly he crosses the room and settles next to the emaciated man huddled on the floor in the corner. His arms draw the lean frame close. He rests his head against the other's, his graying brown hair mingling with black._

I've grown accustomed to my friends' deaths. So many years have passed that the bleeding wounds are no more than scars on my heart.

But sorrow claws your heart to bloody ribbons. It's never left you. Azkaban kept it fresh by feeding you an endless diet of nightmares served on the bodies of your slaughtered soul-brother and his beautiful wife. My heart breaks to witness your fragile control snap and your throat open wide to fling unbearable grief and crushing guilt into the night air. You wail like a creature tortured into madness. It drives you to your knees, your hands gripping your head as if you seek to crush your own skull.

And I remember my curse. How I wanted to see you crawling on your knees begging for mercy. I see it now and it chills my soul.

I'm sorry.

Your body is so thin, whittled down to bone and breath. But I know a fierce flame still burns inside, feeding on memory and conviction. They couldn't stamp it out with their frigid misery, with their moldering decay.

Still, they ravaged you. Though you can't bring yourself to speak of it, I hear it in your nightmares. I feel it in the deep tremors that shudder through your body as I hold you tight. You won't speak of it. Maybe you can't.

I'm so sorry.

Your hair is coarse against my cheek; your body whippet-thin. You could pierce my side with the point of your elbow. Gradually I feel your wiry muscles, taut as bowstrings, relax, and your slight weight leans against me. Your hand tentatively comes to rest atop mine. Our fingers brush and loosely weave together.

We sit in this odd embrace, staring out the window at the trees standing with their boughs picked out in the silver rays of the moon. We say nothing. It's so hard for you to find the words that will bear witness to your long years of pain and to the unquenchable flame of love you've kept alive in the darkness. I'd speak them for you if I could, but I too have lost the words.

I feel my heart break all over again. For both of us.

Tomorrow will be easier. Tomorrow we won't need words. Tomorrow the wolf returns and will joyously welcome the reappearance of his pack mate. Simple, straightforward canine emotion will express what our human minds stumble over. I look forward to the company.

_6.The clouds glow in the night sky as if lit from within by some infernal force. The moon is unseen, but her hidden power pulsates through their murky gauze. A man stands uncertainly by the window, the gray streaks in his hair almost indistinguishable from the light brown. The inexorable pull of the moon fights against the tug of the dark star brooding in the upper reaches of the house._

This evil house. No matter how often we come here or how many of us there are, it knows our presence is temporary, like footsteps in the sand. It always blots out the traces of our existence. And when we return we fight the battle all over again to assert our strength, to fill the musty halls with light and fervor and hope.

He needs all of those things so much. I hate leaving him behind, when I know the house slowly coils around him like a gigantic snake, seeking to crush him. Maybe it senses the changes in him and thinks him weak. Maybe it smells the tincture of madness that now flows in his blood. Maybe it sniggers with dark delight, thinking that his final defeat is inevitable.

It had best be careful, for he is not powerless against it. And when the day finally comes when all the wrongs against him are set right, he will raise a blazing torch and burn this decrepit edifice and all the darkness within it to smoldering ash.

He's changed. Bitter. Tainted. Like this house that jails him once more. But, even when he stumbles and loses himself here in the darkness, he eventually fights back. A small stream erodes the hardest stone. A tiny seed gives birth to a sapling that crawls through granite. The tree may be twisted and blasted, fighting for its survival in a rocky landscape, yet its life will not be denied.

I bring whatever I can to sustain him; gifts that no one else can give. Not copious meals delivered by Molly, who wavers between wanting to mother him and wishing he would just go away. Not bottles of liquid oblivion surreptitiously smuggled in, clanking in the depths of Dung's coat.

Those gifts feed the body and overmaster the mind. He needs both, although his interest in the latter is becoming too habitual, especially when I'm not here.

But, when I'm with him I can chase the demons away, or, at least, keep them at bay. I bring him a certain measure of hope, a window to the possibilities of the future. He remembers that all doors are not closed and locked against him. I bring him awareness and perspective, telling him as much as I can, answering his questions, bridging the chasm between what he knew of the world in 1981 and what has happened since. The events and names and occurrences have been so much gibberish to him, as if we spoke an unrecognizable language.

I comfort him, and ignore the sting when he sometimes throws it back in my face. I'm his most convenient target because I'm here. Blows aimed at others' feelings can't reach their mark, so I become their substitute. He is always contrite later.

I make him smile, even in this dank, old crypt. His laugh is the same. I close my eyes and can imagine us in some other place, some other time, before the world ripped us apart.

I touch him.

The slow stroke of my hand makes him shiver. The caress of my fingers skating across his cheek, sliding through his hair mesmerizes him. His eyes close to slits. He leans into me, without realizing it. He hungers so much for touch. To know his existence is real. And that it matters deeply to someone else.

I love him.

Scarred as he is, no one else compares. He's my deepest sorrow and my greatest joy. I have him back and this time I won't let him go.

_7. A weary man lies on the floor in a puddle of fading moonlight. All his strength has drained away, soaked into that pearly light as if his life-blood had poured from wrists slashed too deeply. The merciless moon has released him back to a world of pain. His throat is sore, whether from ceaseless howls of the tormented wolf, or from choked despair of a broken man. His hair shines mostly silver in the last rays of the moon. Silver like eyes opened wide in shock before they vanished behind the veil._

I don't want to come back. I don't want to wake up. Let me be the wolf. Let me go. Let me lope across the sky in search of him. Let me seek the fading trail of his scent until I find him again.

But the cruel moon turns away from me. She forces me back into the jail of my humanity. For almost all of my life I've wanted to be free of her and the curse of her light. Not any more.

Now, it's only when the moon is brightest that I can release all the pent-up feelings that have no place in my human existence. Only then can I scream my grief. Only the unearthly tones of the wolf can give voice to the unendurable agony I feel.

I hunger for the light of the moon even as she slowly disappears. She's my drug. My opium. My heroin. I want it so desperately that I can't imagine how I'll survive until she returns. How can I think and act and speak to the others, when my heart has shattered?

I see you in my mind over and over. Why wasn't I closer so I could have caught you before you fell? Why did I bother with Neville, when you were fighting that harpy?

Was it because you would have been angry with me if I interfered with your duel? You would have accused me of not trusting your skills. Of thinking you weak. Of not being the man you once were.

You would have scorched me with your fury.

But you'd still be alive. And any amount of your rage stripping the skin from my back would have been worth it to have you still here with me.

I should never have let you come with us to the Ministry. But I couldn't bear to stop you. I couldn't stand to douse the fire in your eyes when you prepared to fly into danger, for Harry's sake. I couldn't deprive you once again of fulfilling the duty you had to the boy you loved like your own blood. I couldn't insist that you stay behind knowing you'd feel you had betrayed him and James and the promise made all those years ago.

I still see Moody's disapproval when he looks at me. He expected my support in convincing you to stay. He doesn't understand that some emotions, some men, cannot and should not always be constrained.

I tell myself that you would have never forgiven yourself had you listened to cautious reason and stayed behind, only to have something dire happen to Harry. It's true. You would have crucified yourself with your own guilt. God know you've hammered the nails into your own hands time and time again when speaking of James and Lily.

Had anything happened to Harry it would have destroyed the fragile structure we'd

rebuilt between us. Everything would have swept away in a flood of blame and recrimination. And this time it would have been gone for good.

You would never have forgiven me if I stopped you.

Well, I didn't. And Harry survived. I tell myself that you died knowing you had not failed him.

But, he has terrible trials ahead of him, and you're not here to help him. I can try but I'm not you. I know he feels lost without you. You'd think we'd be able to share that, to comfort each other, but somehow I can't tell him exactly what you meant to me. What you still mean to me. I do my part and offer my counsel and follow Dumbledore's orders.

I wait. I wait for the moon to come back to ease my human pain. I wait for the battle that will be my last. I can't help but hope that it comes soon.

I miss you.

I look once more into the fading night sky. The moon has almost disappeared, taking my only solace away with her. The starlight is so cold.

_8 .The black-haired young man sits in a solitary vigil. He listens to the shallow breathing of the mortally injured man in the bed. It's the only sound he's heard for hours, after the celebratory noises in the distance died down. He has finished his quest to rid his world of a great evil, but he knows the final step of that journey will be the passing of this man. He hopes the man lives to see one last dawn. So he sits and waits and bears silent witness to the courage of this grayed man, and of the links from present to past that ran through him._

I hurt like never before. Worse than when my bones break to reform into the wolf.

A curse. Something new. Beyond Crucio. A fourth Unforgivable. Voldemort's lasting legacy. He has found a way to immortalize his evil, if not his actual self.

It's almost funny.

I feel my strength ebbing away. I don't think I'll last much longer.

That's okay. I'm ready to go. I've been ready for two years. I guess I'll find out soon if there is something beyond this world.

I smell spring. It's been so long since I noticed a season. I smell new grass and clean air and night dew. And dirt.

Dirt clawed up under my fingers, against my face, as I scream, feeling the hot breath against my neck, the wolf's weight pressing me down, his slavering fangs slashing my shoulder. It was spring then, too.

My parents' worried voices. My mother's cool hand against my face. Doctors and healers and an endless parade of offices. Nights spent tearing at my own flesh in the reinforced cage in the basement.

I hear the memories of my own howls.

I see frowning, fearful faces. People in authority behind imposing wooden desks. Pungent-smelling apothecaries mixing potions and tisanes to try to cure me. They all blur into one another, swirling endlessly until I see…

A scarlet steam train. The lights of Hogwarts reflecting on the lake. A room all in red and gold with a window ledge. A short, chubby blond and two taller black-haired boys that at first I thought were brothers.

Parchment and ink. Cauldrons and scales. Dung bombs and Honeyduke's chocolate. The Whomping Willow and a musty old shack.

Stomach twisting when I told them lies. Stomach lurching when they told me they knew. Absolute joy when they said they didn't care, it didn't matter, I was their friend.

A rat, a stag, a dog. Pack mates, especially the dog.

Sickened hurt when Snape found out about the wolf. When I was betrayed.

And then heat. Sweaty, searing hunger for flesh and skin and midnight hair and diamond gray eyes. The sudden blinding heart-stopping realization that I was in love. With him. Immutably and irrevocably. I was his for the rest of my life.

The memories flood uncontrollably, all mixed together.

Sweet deep kisses. Barking laughter in my ears. Lily and James, resplendent at their wedding. Night falls and dawn never comes. Fear. Uncertainty. Names in the newspaper. Dead. Cold, lonely bed. Peter's voice. Insinuating. Lily radiantly pregnant. Baby Harry.

Gone in a flash.

Stumbling through the years. Shabby stores. Meager pay. Revulsion on their faces when they fire me.

And then Hogwarts' lights again. A classroom and a boy with James' face and Lily's eyes. The Shrieking Shack and an incredible weight lifts off my shoulders. My heart starts beating again as it all becomes clear in the haunted tunnels of your eyes.

All things seem possible again, even with evil approaching. We're together and love washes away so much of the blood our souls have spilled.

But not all.

Regret and guilt and blame still flavor our wine. You're trapped in that house, so miserable. Until that last run, through the long hallways into that room, down the stone steps. Wands flaring, shouted hexes, and you fall, arcing so slowly and gracefully.

The fluttering veil.

I see it now. I can hear the soft cloth whispering like the finest silk. The light behind it is so warm and enticing. It would feel so good on my cold skin and aching bones. I'll just pull the cloth back for a minute. Oh, it's so bright and warm…

There's someone there, a silhouette against the bright white light. I take a step and realize that I know that form. I recognize the set of those shoulders, the graceful balance of that body, the sweep of black hair. My heart springs to life.

_The first bright rays of dawn pour through the window like molten honey. The light flows across the man in the bed, bringing a healthy glow to his face. He opens his eyes. His gaze sweeps past the young man still sitting next to him and settles on the window. A luminous smile spreads across his face and chases away all vestiges of pain._

You're so real. So beautiful, as if you've never been marred by the ravages of pain and suffering. I can't believe you're here. I can't believe it. If I find you and lose you again, if this is only a mirage, it will kill me. But, no, I feel your arms tenderly embrace me. I feel the strength of your body and your silky hair between my fingers. Your eyes dazzle in a face alight with joy and love. All the promise of your youth, all the glory that your life thwarted, is here in full bloom before me. I can't breathe. I can only hold you tight.

I understand. My journey is over. I'm with you, and we will never be parted again, not for all eternity. My elation is boundless; my heart overflows. There is only one word that expresses the love I feel…

"Sirius."

_The young man turns abruptly, half-expecting to see the tall form of his godfather standing by the window. But all he sees is the strengthening light of the sun, on the first day of a new age. He turns back to his companion in time to see the light fade from his hazel eyes. The shallow breathing ceases. Yet, the radiant smile lingers. The young man swallows the lump in his throat. He leans forward and places a kiss of farewell on his friend's forehead. He gently eases the eyelids shut. Then he stands and walks from the room._

END


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